Paul Calem
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Julapa Jagtiani
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Susan Wachter
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Existing data sources show divergent estimates of the number of homes purchased by first-time homebuyers as a share of all home purchases. In this paper, we use a new data set to construct a time series of the share of first-time homebuyers. This series, based on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Equifax Consumer Credit Panel (CCP), shows a significant decline in this share, particularly for young households, which is consistent with the decline in homeownership in this age cohort since the early 2000s.